STEVE MASON

THERE’S THAT NOTABLE SCENE IN THE 2000 FILM ADAPTATION OF NICK HORNBY’S HIGH FIDELITY… THREE WORKERS IN A HIP RECORD SHOP PUT ON DRY THE RAIN BY THE BETA BAND… THE ENTIRE SHOP IS CARRIED AWAY BY ITS SPIRALLING STONER GROOVE – THOUGH THE THREE MAIN CHARACTERS EXCHANGE KNOWING EYE-CONTACT; LIKE DESPITE WHATEVER HAPPENS NOW, THE BAND WILL FOREVER REMAIN THEIR SECRET…

For Steve Mason, the figurehead of The Beta Band, noble ambition was always artistic and not necessarily commercial. Years on, most recent solo album MEET THE HUMANS has received, probably, some of the best notice of his career. Out on tour in support of it right now, Mason took some time out to talk to The Mouth Magazine about remaining true to the art in the face of commercial pressures – and about setting sights higher than cocaine and shoes, whether a musician or not. He also gives an insight into the genesis of MEET THE HUMANS, and speaks about his past run-ins with depression…

THE TOUR FOR MEET THE HUMANS BEGAN VERY RECENTLY, SO IT’S EARLY DAYS BUT HOW HAS THAT BEEN GOING?It’s been great, actually. Really good. The last gig we played in Liverpool – or attempted to play – was cancelled at the last second. Just before we were about to go stage the PA packed in, basically. It was very very frustrating for us, but there were also a lot of very frustrated people in the audience. I thought they might be sulking – but actually they all came out to play on the first night of this tour, which was great. We loved it. It was exactly how you’d want the first night of your tour to be.

IN THE PAST YOU’VE SPOKEN ABOUT YOUR STRUGGLE WITH DEPRESSION. I FELT THAT IN SOME WAY THE SONG ALIVE, FROM MEET THE HUMANS, IS CONNECTED WITH THAT.I can see what you mean, but ALIVE is not really about that. It’s more about the fact that the establishment is making us all incredibly fat, lazy, inarticulate and moribund. Democracy has failed us on every level. That’s what ALIVE is about.

IN THE CONTEXT OF THE ALBUM, I MEAN… THERE’S THIS GENERAL SENSE OF THE CLOUDS LIFTING OR THE PICTURE BRIGHTENING (AND THAT’S DESPITE THE LYRICAL CONTENT OF THAT PARTICULAR SONG)…Yeah, definitely. Yeah. You are right about that. You are right about the clouds lifting. I’ve been feeling better for quite some considerable time. I guess the subject matter on this album is similar to what it’s been on the last couple of albums – but maybe a little bit brighter in its delivery this time. So, rather than like you’re locked in a room with an angry or depressed hippopotamus. This time it’s more like you’re… riding on the back of a dolphin… who’s telling you he’s feeling alright…

… NICE…
Ha ha ha…

NOT THAT MEET THE HUMANS IS CAUTIOUS IN ANY WAY, BUT THERE’S SOMETHING QUITE STEADY ABOUT IT IN TERMS OF MOOD… LIKE A QUIET OPTIMISM, A STEADY OPTIMISM. THERE’S A SENSE OF BALANCE.Yeah. I always try and do everything with a sense of balance. Human beings are not one thing or another, you know? Years ago when I was suffering from depression I wasn’t just like that. I wasn’t just depressed. Everybody gets happy, everybody gets sad, everybody gets angry, everybody falls in love and everybody falls out of love. We’re all a mixture of a million different things.

AND YOUR WORK HAS TO REFLECT THAT FOR IT TO HAVE INTEGRITY…
That’s right, yeah. I always think an album should, and has to, reflect all those emotions and all those things that it takes to make up a human being, you know? I think that’s really important… and pretty obvious, really.

HOW WOULD YOU DEAL WITH THOSE DARKER PERIODS? ARE YOU THE SORT OF PERSON WHO WOULD BE OUT THERE RAGING AGAINST IT? OR, ARE YOU THE SORT OF PERSON WHO WOULD BUNKER DOWN AND WAIT FOR THE HIPPO TO STOP CIRCLING?Yeah, pretty much bunker down. Pretty much. It’s weird. I haven’t really talked about that for such a long time. I used to talk about it in depth when I was suffering from it. But now it’s really hard for me to remember what it was actually like, because my life is so different these days. I’ve really moved away from that whole depression dollar – and now I’m on the optimism dollar… Ha ha… But basically I just used to hide away, turn the telephone off, watch a lot of black-and-white films, eat Garibaldi’s and wait for it all to blow over… Ha ha…

DID YOU EVER TRY USING ANY SORT OF DEPRESSION MEDICATION?Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was on anti-depressants for about ten or twelve years. I wouldn’t recommend it.

NO. DID YOU FIND THAT THEY SORT OF ‘BLUNTED’ YOUR LIFE?Yeah. They’re quite good for a year or a couple of years or so, to get you over the hump. But they’re not addressing anything for you, they’re not fixing anything. And they affect everyone in different ways. No matter what drugs – prescription or illegal – they affect everyone in different ways. Anti-depressants can make you incredibly lethargic and they absolutely tear your libido to pieces. So you end up being this over-eating, sleepy, sexless hippopotamus. That’s fine for a little while, but sooner or later…

… YOU WANT TO GET IT ON… Yeah, yeah… You wanna get it on. You wanna move away from Garibaldi’s to that beautiful vegetable salad with the balsamic glaze. There’s a whole world out there of culinary sexual exploits to be had, ha ha…

… HA HA… HOW DID MEDICATION AFFECT THE CREATIVE PART OF YOU?I didn’t really go on medication for years because I was worried it would affect my creativity, actually. When you’re on that medication you still write songs, and they’re a little bit more positive. Some of the stuff I was writing in The Beta Band was really really dark. Some of the lyrics – THE HARD ONE or ROUND THE BEND – are pretty sad. They’re pretty sad songs. But I went onto anti-depressants round about the time of HOT SHOTS II and the songs became just a little bit less sad. The tempo rises and, I guess, the way of saying what you’re saying becomes a bit less like a one-way street. You’re perhaps suggesting that there are ways out of that room with the hippo that you hadn’t noticed before. A door into the dolphin enclosure…

YOU’VE SAID IN THE PAST THAT YOUR SONGS ARE 100% PERSONAL… ON MEET THE HUMANS THE VIBE IS OPTIMISTIC AND FORWARD-LOOKING – WERE THERE PARTICULAR THINGS THAT YOU WERE BURSTING TO SAY?
Not really, no… I never start out like that – apart from on MONKEY MINDS IN THE DEVIL’S TIME where I was deliberately trying to do a political concept album. I had something then that I specifically wanted to say… On this one, most of the time I just started writing a song and I’d never really know what it was about until I’d finished.

THAT’S INTERESTING… THE IDEA OF AUTOMATIC WRITING…
Yeah. Well, I don’t deliberately start out with an intention. I don’t think “I’m going to write a song about death but make it sound like I’m riding a pony through a misty morning dew”, you know – though that’s what TO A DOOR is. People have told me that’s a beautiful song, a gorgeous song, a lovely song… and it is quite a jaunty song. But it’s actually about death, you know? It’s about suicide… I didn’t know it was going to be about that when I started it.

SO IT MUST BE A BIT OF A LEARNING CURVE TO MAKE SENSE OF WHAT COMES OUT, IF THAT’S YOUR PROCESS…
Yeah, yeah. It is. I never know what these songs are about until I’ve finished them – then I look at the lyrics and go “Oh yeah. Right. Okay”… But I like that. It’d be boring if I sat down and said “I’m going to write a song about Costa coffee and the evils that they do within the corporate sphere”; I would struggle with that rigidity. I definitely would struggle to do that. It’s probably a bad example, actually. If I said I was going to write a song about cashew nuts, I would definitely struggle with that. Or if I said I was going to write a song about really long trousers. I would struggle with that. So I think it’s best just to let my imagination completely roam free when I’m writing… Automatic writing really teaches you to get rid of that filter in your thinking.

… NOT EVERYONE IS A WRITER BUT EVERYONE HAS THAT FILTER…
Yeah, they do, yeah. Everyone has it – and it kicks in on a daily basis. You’re taught from birth to not function outside the box – which you can’t do anyway if you can’t think outside the box. You’re taught to not have true freedom of thought and you’re taught to not let your imagination roam free. You’re especially not supposed to have that as you get older, actually – instead what they want you to think about is income tax and child tax credits and mortgages and all these other bloody things like that.

… SO BEING AN ARTIST IS ACTUALLY A SUBVERSIVE ACT THEN…
Yeah, I suppose it is. I’m incredibly lucky to not have a job where I’m forced on a daily basis to do something incredibly repetitive and mundane, and that wears everything about me out. It’s my job to use my imagination as much as I possibly can – so that’s what I try and do. I try to not have any set goals or barriers. It’s my job to experience, and then ‘see what comes out’.

WITH THAT WHOLE AREA WE’VE JUST DISCUSSED IN MIND, THEN, I WONDERED HOW ‘AWARE’ YOU ARE? GENERALLY DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU’RE AT, OR DID YOU GET TO THE END OF MEET THE HUMANS AND LISTEN BACK TO THIS WHOLE GATHERING OF SONGS AND THINK “AH, OK, SO THAT’S WHO I AM RIGHT NOW AND THAT’S WHAT’S GOING ON IN MY LIFE”..?
Errrrm. Not really, no. I know already. That’s for other people to do, put the bits together or whatever. People who listen to the record may say “That’s a jaunty little album, so that’s who he is”… But I don’t care, I don’t really care. So, as long as I feel it’s the best record I could make, as long as I feel it’s… I mean, as long as when it’s beautiful, it’s the most beautiful it could be… and when it’s heartbreaking, it’s the most heartbreaking it could possibly be… and when it’s optimistic, it’s really fucking optimistic… and as long as when it’s leading you down a cul-de-sac with something really bad at the bottom of it, then that thing is really really bad, really fucking terrifying… That’s it. Everything has to be the most it can possibly be – and then it’s up to the listener. It’s not up to me. It’s my job to do the thing, but I don’t think it’s my job to look at the whole thing afterwards and join up dots in that way.

THERE’S A LOVELY QUALITY TO THE RECORDINGS ON MEET THE HUMANS – A LOVELY SOUND. I KNOW SONICS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN VERY IMPORTANT TO YOU – PERHAPS AS MUCH A PART OF THE WRITING AS THE INSTRUMENTATION, THE MELODIES, THE LYRICS…Yeah, definitely. A hundred percent, a hundred percent… Every album that I do, I demo it first in full at home. The sound is very important. I always imagine that talking about this sort of thing is probably quite boring to some people, the nuts and bolts, but… a whole song can be changed by something simple like the length of a reverb on a particular melody. Or a particular delay. Or a little accident that happens in the vocal, like a harmony. Or if you’re double-tracking the vocal and you’ve not got the double-tracking quite right. Those things can add importance to a line that you hadn’t really noticed was there, before… So when you go in a studio and re-record those demos…

… THE MAGIC WILL GO?
Yeah, exactly, exactly. You can be in a situation where the new version doesn’t have the emotion that it had on the demo version. That’s purely because of these tiny little details – a reverb length, a delay speed that’s not quite right, an accident in the vocals, or whatever it is… Luckily with the quality of things like Pro-Tools, you can import those things over from the demo. You can take those things in. So, a song like THROUGH MY WINDOW – just piano and vocals – that one’s the demo I did at home. Me and Craig (Potter, producer) talked about it a lot and agreed that there was just no point in trying to do it again. There would have been no point in re-recording it because it would have been so different. It already had the perfect atmosphere to it… WORDS IN MY HEAD, as well. That’s approximately 95% of the demo, actually. Certain other tracks we just brought in all the little bits from the demos – the moments that were just perfect or that you couldn’t really replicate if you tried.

… PRESERVING THE MAGIC OF THAT MOMENT…
Yeah. Those things are really important. Sometimes it’s very important to not be precious, and sometimes it’s very important to really be precious. When you’re dealing with an emotional thing, when those details in the demo have an emotional impact, you have to keep those things. You have to transfer those moments over the the studio version. If you’re working on a four-track recorder like in the old days, then you couldn’t do it. Luckily, in the digital age, that’s a hell of a lot easier than it would have been before.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE IMPACT OF DIGITAL AS THE OPPOSITE OF THAT, THEN. THE KNOWLEDGE THAT YOU CAN PERFECT ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING – HARMONIES, PITCH, TEMPO, SOUND… THAT’S A DESTROYER OF THE VIBE…
In this context, sure. Sure. For example, in an R&B record you absolutely want that complete and utter sterilised cleanliness. That adds to the whole thing of it, but yeah… You’re right. So many records that are produced now, irrespective of genre, are so ridiculously over-produced. They sound horrible. It doesn’t sound like they’ve even used amplifiers. It sounds like they’ve been using pods, like they’ve just plugged in directly, and there’s no air in anything. That really turns me off.

IT’S ALMOST TOO CONTROLLED, YOU MEAN…
Yeah, too precise, too clean, too careful – even if they’ve tried to dirty up the sound digitally. I like R&B and I do like what they do with it – but if it’s rock music I want it to be a complete fucking shambles.

YEAH – IT’S VERY VERY EXCITING WHEN THERE’S THAT SENSE THAT THINGS COULD HAVE JUST DE-RAILED AND CRASHED AT ANY MOMENT, OR THAT IT WAS A BIT OF A RIGHTEOUS FIST-FIGHT TO GET THINGS ‘RIGHT’?
Absolutely… It’s my friend’s birthday in a couple of days and we’re playing in Aberdeen, and The Clash were his favourite band. So we’ve been learning COMPLETE CONTROL by The Clash. We were playing it and playing it and playing it, and the more we were playing it the more my guitar started to go out of tune. And more and more it started to sound exactly like The Clash. Ha ha…
I DON’T IMAGINE THAT COULD EVER HAPPEN AGAIN – EVERYTHING’S SO TECHNICALLY CATERED FOR…Yeah, maybe. I mean, if you listen to any recordings of The Clash playing live, the guitars are fucking unbelievable. They are all over the place – totally out of tune. But once it all starts happening it sounds just like The Clash. It sounds fantastic. Me and my bass player were having this conversation about it and it was really funny. The more we played COMPLETE CONTROL the more it sounded like The Clash, because our instruments were going so far out of tune. That’s great, though – the idea of no guitar tuners, just a tune-up before you go on, and then an hour-and-a-half later The Clash actually sound like The Clash… Just that rudimentary tune-up, then an hour-and-a-half later it’s all still pedal-to-the-metal. It’s actually quite beautiful, you know?

THINKING ABOUT PRECISION, THOUGH, OR TECHNICAL QUALITY, IF YOU LIKE, TO CONVEY EMOTION – YOU’VE ALSO WORKED WITH THE ORCHESTRATOR JOE DUDDELL…
That was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever done. The only thing that was amplified was my vocals so his little group was playing acoustically. It was in this little town hall in Portmeirion at the Festival No.6, a great setting, and so it was one of the best things I’ve ever done. I’m playing with him again in January at the Barbican and I’m really looking forward to doing that with his group along with my band. We’re going to do the tracks we did at No.6 exactly how we did them there, and we’re going to do some other songs together with everyone. It really really was one of the best things I’ve done. Lots of people have classical music on a pedestal as though it’s the only real music and that’s the only music you are allowed to take seriously, and everything else is just rubbish. I really don’t like that pomposity. That really turns me off.

IT’S LIKE DISMISSING EVERY WRITER SINCE SHAKESPEARE AS GARBAGE.
It is like that. It’s total snobbery. Exactly. But when you hear your stuff done like that it really takes your breath away. Hearing melodies that you’ve written played on a harp or with a string quartet or a glockenspiel adds a sort of strange gravitas that seems to legitimise your writing. I was kind of welling up at a couple of points – moments when the sun rises during certain really sad songs. It was very very emotional and there were people crying in the audience. It was so beautiful.

JOE’S BRILLIANT, ISN’T HE? LIKE A CONDUIT BETWEEN THE TWO WORLDS…
That’s exactly what Joe is. He’s much needed because classical people can be quite difficult to deal with, usually, but the fact is Joe gets rock music and gets the classical world equally, and so he’s able to marry the two things together in a really brilliant way.

THE RECEPTION TO MEET THE HUMANS HAS BEEN FANTASTIC – PRESS AND PUBLIC ALIKE… BUT DO YOU NEED THAT? DO YOU NEED VALIDATION OR ARE YOU SELF-SUFFICIENT?
It’s a really difficult question to answer, actually. I’ve been really lucky in that I’ve never had viciously bad reviews and I’ve never put out an album where the press has said “this is absolute crap”… Obviously you get bad reviews here and there, but you’re always going to get those whoever you are. But I’ve never had across the board reviews saying that my work is appalling or aksing “what the hell is he doing?” and so I’ve been really lucky. I’ve never had to experience that negativity at that level. But would it affect me if I have that at some point? Yes, definitely. Of course it would. If I was 100% sure that the album was right and that the press was wrong and if all of my close friends who I completely trust said to me “that’s bollocks – it’s a fantastic record, don’t listen to them”, then… Well, I don’t know. I’ve never been in that situation. I want to be bullish like all those pompous fucking rock stars who say “I don’t give a shit what the press say” – but you do and of course they do, too. If you’ve put two years into an album and every line in it is one hundred percent honest and one hundred percent true to you… If it’s your life contained in these songs and then someone says “this is dreadful”, the idea that that’s not going to affect you is absolutely ridiculous. Of course it’s going to upset you. But as for press validation it’s not really about that for me. I’m not looking for the press to validate my existence. I just want to connect with people. I want the records I’ve made to connect with people at a deep emotional level. I’m lucky because I know my stuff does that – it does what I am looking for.
I WONDERED IF YOU STRUGGLED WITH THE ATTENTION, TO BE HONEST – I’M THINKING BACK TO THE BETA BAND DAYS, WHEN YOU COULD BE A LITTLE BIT ORNERY… I’LL TAKE A PUNT IN THE DARK AND SAY THAT WAS ACTUALLY AWKWARDNESS RATHER THAN ARROGANCE…
Yeah. I used to struggle with it – but the thing is I’m older now and much more confident about who I am and about what my place in the world is. Also kicking depression is important, here. It’s a huge thing; a massive massive thing. That sort of anxiety is a whole other driver thrown into the mix. It affects every single fucking thing you do – from something basic like taking a piss all the way up to making the biggest, most important, decisions of your life. Really. It affects every single thing. Now I don’t have that in the mix it’s not affecting me anymore…

ARE YOU A PARTICULARLY SHY PERSON? A PARTICULARLY PRIVATE PERSON?
I’m a very private person. The last thing I ever wanted to be was really really famous because I like being able to be in a position where I’m the observer. I don’t want to be observed… But I’m really lucky because I don’t think of myself as famous, so I don’t feel the pressure of feeling like I’m being observed. In fact I’m not famous in the grand scheme of things. If you want to be famous then you walk around thinking that you’re famous… I’m just about to walk into this pub now, and some people would walk in there expecting to be recognised – but that never ever crosses my mind so I’m free from the burden of constantly living within this projected personality.

SO EVEN THOUGH YOU MAY WALK IN THERE AND BE RECOGNISED BY SOMEBODY, IT’S NOT IN YOUR HEAD ALL THE TIME… SO YOU’RE FREE FROM THE TRAPS IT LAYS…
Yeah, that’s exactly right. It’s actually always a surprise when that happens to me. It’s nice though. I’m lucky in that the people who like me people are respectful and usually say things like “Really sorry to bother, but I just wanted to say how much I love The Beta Band” or whatever, blah blah blah, and then they just leave me alone. That’s absolutely fine. I mean that’s not going to happen today. We’re here in this little village in the middle of nowhere and no-one’s going to know who the hell I am… but if I walk into a pub in Stoke Newington, or certain pubs in any other city, then there’s a good chance that I could be recognised. But I don’t tend to go to those places anyway, so it doesn’t matter. I don’t have to walk around ‘being famous’ – because I’m not.

DID YOU WANT TO BE, THOUGH?
I never wanted to be famous – but that’s not to say I didn’t want to be successful. I wanted to be massively successful, and I still do. I wanted The Beta Band to be very successful. But, actually, what is success?
YEAH – WHAT WOULD SUCCESS HAVE BEEN FOR THE BETA BAND?
Well, back then the whole idea was to blow the Verve and Oasis out of the fucking water – but not at any cost. I wanted to completely change the landscape and what music meant at that time – because at that time the balance was totally wrong. It was all about idiots obsessed with cocaine and shoes, swaggering about saying that they’re going to be bigger than The Beatles. That was just absolute bollocks. That stuff had nothing to do with art. In no way was that meaningful. If the total of your achievement is being a coked-up knobhead mouthing off, then it’s not the best, is it? It’s completely vacuous. So The Beta Band was about completely rejecting the idea of being famous. Being ‘rock star famous’ is actually so uncool. It was cool in the ’60s but now if you have the idea in your head that you wanna be a rockstar, you may as well say that you wanna be an accountant. I put them on the same level now. But if you say you want to be an artist then that’s great. But the idea of being a rock star in a country mansion with a lot of cocaine… It’s absolutely ridiculous and I’ve never had any respect for that ambition or that mindset.

I’M GOING TO REVERSE THIS SLIGHTLY, THEN… THERE’S THAT SCENE IN THE FILM OF NICK HORNBY’ HIGH FIDELITY, WHERE THE THREE CHARACTERS WHO WORK IN THE RECORD SHOP PUT ON THE BETA BAND’S DRY THE RAIN. THE WHOLE SHOP GETS INTO IT, BUT THOSE THREE EXCHANGE EYE-CONTACT LIKE THEY KNOW AND IT’S THEIR SECRET… IT’S CHARMING, BUT HOW DO YOU HANDLE THE IDEA OF HAVING BEEN IN ‘A CULT BAND’..?
Yeah, that scene… I don’t care. “The past is a different country,” as somebody said – though I don’t know who that was… I don’t care. I don’t care what people say about The Beta Band. It means something to me and to the people involved in it, and nobody saying that The Beta Band were a cult band is ever going to change where it is for us. I know what we did, I know what we were about and what we stood for, and I know my role in it. I could die tomorrow being one hundred percent proud of what we achieved in The Beta Band. However, it’s now. I’m here talking to you because of an album I put out a few months ago. At the gigs people have been screaming for some of the new songs, and that fills me with so much joy. I never really think about The Beta Band anymore, anyway, and it never really crosses my mind until someone else mentions it. I like to move forward – that’s my thing, and it’s always been that way. Don’t get me wrong, though – there is a time for thinking back, for sure. But for me it’ll be when I’m 80 years old. It’s definitely not now – but I haven’t minded talking to you about it today. I love moving forward, though.

SO, MOVING FORWARD… WHAT IS NEXT FOR YOU?
November and December time I’m going to be writing. In January I’ve got the thing at the Barbican with Joe Duddell, which I can’t wait to do again, and then there’s a little European / Scandinavian tour in February and March. Then back round into the festivals after that. But, all the time, I’ll keep trying to write. I’ll be keeping on writing, yeah…

ARE YOU OPEN-ENDED ABOUT YOUR PLANS? DO YOU LIKE TO SET YOURSELF RIGID GOALS OR ARE YOU FLEXIBLE?
Well, what’s been happening recently is that I’ve been putting an album out every three years… I want to try and get that down to two years because I constantly feel like I’m playing catch up. Every album seems to be treated as though it’s some sort of come-back album, ha ha… So I want to try and get that down a bit. I don’t know if that’s possible because it takes my brain a long time to take in and digest what’s happening in my life, but I’m certainly going to give it a go. I feel I’ve been a little bit lazy perhaps…

IT’S A SUBSTANTIAL BODY OF WORK, THOUGH…
Yeah, sure. But when David Bowie died I looked at his back catalogue and there was a period of about ten years where he put out at least one album a year and toured it around the world. The work ethic! It made me feel ashamed of myself… So I’m trying to up the ante a bit and keep working. I mean, I’m not a lazy person but I do think I need to up the ante. I need to keep the current momentum going because there’s a real momentum at the minute. Whether it’s possible or not I don’t know. You and I might be here in three years talking about yet another ‘come-back’ album…